


Right Where We Are

by missmichellebelle



Series: CrissColfer Bingo [3]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That,” Chris starts, “is Darren.” And a moment or so later, Darren starts to sing. The timing is so perfect that it’s almost annoying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Where We Are

**Author's Note:**

> For my CCBingo prompt: **Crooner**.
> 
> Song used is Ed Sheeran's "[Thinking Out Loud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpyfrixXBqU)."

“What can I get for you?” Chris asks as a girl slumps down at his bar. She looks a little worse for wear, and Chris’s mouth immediately sets into a line. In his line of work, a lot of wounded people cross his path, and Chris’s boss likes to tell him that he has too much of a bleeding heart for the job. But Chris has found that, sometimes, it can be as much as a gift as it can be a burden.

It takes her a few moments to realize that someone is talking to her, and when she does look at him, it’s in a dazed sort of way. Her eyes are rimmed red like she’s been crying, but maybe she just has allergies. Chris nearly laughs at himself— _yeah_ , because people suffering from the sniffles love to flop down at his bar. She blinks at him, as if she’s not sure where she is or what she’s doing there.

“Um…” And like maybe she’s forgotten the basics of human speech and interaction.

“Here.” Chris fills a glass with water and slides it to her across the bar. “Start with that. When you want something harder, just let me know.” He gives her a soft, reassuring smile, and then is being called away by a regular. He’s already a few feet away when he hears her mutter an astonished sounding, “Thanks,” like attention, or kindness, isn’t something she’s expecting.

The next time he passes by her, and sets a menu down, clearly startling her and pulling her attention away from the grain of the wood finish of the bar top. Chris can’t help but shoot glances at her as he fills a pitcher from the tap, each look becoming steadily more concerned. After he has the beer and glasses ready for the waitress to pick up, he decides that it’s a slow enough night that he has the time to dote on a stranger.

“So how drunk are you looking to get?” Chris asks conversationally, leaning back against the workbar and giving the customer her space. She seems to snap out of her thoughts again, and this time when she looks at Chris, her eyes are glassy, like she’s about to start crying. Chris toys with his lip and debates leaving her alone, especially when she continues to stare at him blankly without saying anything. But he pushes forward. “You look like you could use something a little harder… Maybe not enough that you wake up tomorrow not remembering everything, but just enough to forget for a little while.”

She seems surprised by his statement, and he knows that she’s watching him as he starts to mentally flip through his repertoire of mixed drinks. Really, he thinks she should go home, that at this point, alcohol will probably just make everything worse, _but_ … She came to a bar, and people only come to bars when they’re looking to get drunk to some degree. If he sends her away, she’ll just go somewhere else.

Besides, he _does_ have a job to do.

“Let me guess…” Chris hums thoughtfully as he steps toward her, looking her up and down thoughtfully. “I’m going to guess it was a fight with someone close to you, maybe a family member or a friend? In that case, we could start with a long island, let you nurse it, see where you are after that,” Chris advises, like a doctor speaking to a patient rather than a bartender to a customer.

“H-how did you know that?” She gapes at him. “I mean, yeah, my roommate and I…” She gestures with her hand, rolls her eyes, and Chris can nearly physically see the way her throat seizes up, like if she says anymore the tears will just _come_.

“Honey, it’s all a part of the job,” he tells her with a playful smile, and then carefully sets his hand on her arm. “So how about that long island?”

For a few second she stares at the physical contact, before giving a sharp nod and a, “Yeah, okay.”

Chris turns to start grabbing the plethora of liquors he needs, and is a little surprised when she says, “Um, thank you. I don’t normally do this, it just… Seemed like a good idea.” Chris smiles as he pours the alcohol, and decides it’s better not to let her know he can tell she isn’t exactly a bar hopper.

It’s funny, because bartending was never really a part of Chris’s plan. When he’d moved to New York initially, getting a job at the Red Rabbit had just been to keep him fed and partially housed (the other partially coming from another part time job he’d had at the time). He’d been 18 at the time, and a waiter with zero experience who had somehow ended up in 1940s themed lounge bar. But it had worked—his bosses like him, he’s been working with more-or-less the same people for the last five years, and when their old bartender had left for a job in Vegas the summer after Chris had turned 21, it had all worked out into him suddenly having a full-time, better paying position.

At first, he’d been horrible at all of it—he was awkward, and a little clumsy, and he hated the way people seemed to think he was an on-the-house therapist that came with whatever drink they ordered. Then one day, his well-meaning but probably awful advice had made a man not much older than himself look at him so genuinely and say, “Thank you. I forgot for a little while that my life meant something.”

It was like that magic flip of a switch that happens in stories, or maybe just that suddenly Chris wanted to be good at what he was doing. Funny, how sometimes putting in the hard work actually pays off. He’s been lead bartender for two years now, and he never forgets how lucky he is that his boss decided to take a chance on some kid with zero experience. Sometimes, Chris wonders if at first they regretted it, but… Chris likes to think he grew into his own.

Chris sets the drink down in front of the girl with a flourish, and she carefully pulls it toward her, playing with the rim of the glass.

“Seriously, thank you…” She looks at him, eyes searching across him, and a few beats pass before Chris realizes that she’s looking for a nametag.

“Chris,” he introduces himself, holding out his hand—they don’t wear nametags at the Red Rabbit. They’re also supposed to keep the illusion alive by talking and acting certain ways, but Chris stopped doing those things a long time ago, and his boss gave up trying to make him. Chris supposes that’s what happens when you work in the same place for such a long time. “Pleasure.”

She takes his hand and gives it a single shake, seeming thrown by the interaction for some reason. “I’m, um… I’m Anna.”

Chris gives her another smile, before one of the waitresses (her name is Lauren) is calling his attention away, and he holds up a finger towards Anna to let her know he’ll be right back.

“I see you found another stray,” Lauren says with a grin, leaning her elbows on the bar as he fills the round of shots she needs.

“She’s a person, not a kitten,” Chris mutters, paying her no attention. Everyone likes to give him a hard time for going out of his way to talk to the people who look like they need it—the ones with the worn faces, and the wrinkled clothing, and the messy hair. The people who look like the world chewed them up and spit them out.

Chris knows how good it can be just to _talk_ to someone, and sometimes talking to a stranger is the best thing of all. Sure, Chris remembers a lot of the stories he’s been told, and the faces who told them, but most of the time Chris never hears from a “stray” again.

“Yeah, but you obviously want to take her home,” Lauren coos, reaching across the arm to grab at Chris’s chin and squeeze his cheeks. “Feed her, keep her out of the rain.”

“You are a weird person,” Chris deadpans, jerking away from her grasp. “Here are your shots.” He pushes the serving tray to rest against her elbows. “I believe you have a flock of your own to deal with.”

“Baa,” she replies, and then is walking away. Chris shakes his head before he heads back to Anna, who is looking down at her drink. She’s taken a few sips, and Chris deduces that she’ll probably nurse the one the entire time she’s sitting there. Which is fine—if it was busier, it would be a problem, letting her sit there for a long period of time, but most of the barstools are empty and will stay empty until they close in a few hours.

“How’s that drink treating you?” Chris asks as he approaches.

“Oh! Oh, it’s good. Thank you.” She blinks rapidly, not really looking at him as he speaks. “And… And thanks for being nice to me.” Her eyebrows scrunch together. “Your girlfriend must be very lucky.”

Chris’s lets out a startled huff of laughter, eyes going wide.

“Well, first, you don’t have to thank me for kindness. Everyone deserves a little kindness.” Chris rubs at his nose, smiling. “And as for my _boyfriend_ , yes… I’d say he is.” Sometimes Chris forgets that the entirety of New York doesn’t know that he’s gay.

She looks a little embarrassed, and maybe a little deflated, and opens her mouth as if to say something more (and Chris wishes she wouldn’t, it’s much better if they just barrel past this), when the lights go down, then up, then down again, and then up one more time. It seems to be enough to switch Anna’s attention away, for which Chris is grateful.

“What was that?”

“The show is about to start,” Chris tells her, leaning on the bar and gesturing towards the stage with a jerk of his chin. It’s a little lower to the ground than most stages, fringed and backdropped with richly colored velvet curtains. A vintage microphone is sitting center stage in its stand, with an array of instruments in the background.

“Show?” She asks, seeming surprised.

“Kind of… Adds to the theme.” Chris shrugs. It had seemed a little strange to him when he’d started working there (not to mention a _ridiculous_ distraction), but he’d grown used to it, and was quick to see what the owners obviously saw—it was one of their biggest draws. And not just because it’s dinners (or drinks) and a show.

Chris smiles slightly, remembering when it used to be the highlight of his workdays.

“You should watch it,” Chris advises. “It might help… Take your mind off things.” Chris’s smile grows, and Anna looks a little baffled by it. She seems unsure—Chris can practically see the way she’s poised to turn on her stool and just stopping the momentum of the movement—and he wants to tell her that she’ll end up watching it, anyway. He would even put money on it. That she might very well become a face in the horde of girls that hog the front tables several nights a week (including this one). That’ll she’ll be drawn into it, just like he was.

But before he can say anything, there’s a _clunk_ of glass on the bar top calling Chris away, and that seems to make Anna’s mind up for her. Holding her glass to her chest like a security blanket, she spins on her stool to face the stage, and Chris fondly rolls his eyes.

The spotlight comes on as he gathers dirty glasses, highlighting the lone microphone on the stage, and Chris pauses to watch the shadows as the band moves into place before the lights come up. Chris huffs a laugh before turning back to what he’s doing, as the rest of the lights turn on one by one as each instrument begins to play. There’s only the slightest sound of a piano before the screaming starts, and Chris smiles softly.

By that time, he’s made it back to Anna, who looks confused by the noise coming from near the stage. But Chris knows it’ll be just a few more seconds—

The screaming gets louder, and Chris turns his head just in time to see the piano player finish his bop up to the microphone. The music shifts from what was most likely not a real song into something more familiar, and Chris openly watches Anna as her eyes grow wider and her mouth drops open.

“Who is _that?_ ” She asks without looking away, her voice quiet enough that she probably doesn’t expect an answer.

But Chris is right there, bemused smile in place, to answer. “That,” Chris starts, “is Darren.” And a moment or so later, Darren starts to sing. The timing is so perfect that it’s almost annoying.

He’s doing Sinatra, which isn’t strange. After all, the Red Rabbit is a bar that calls back to the golden decades of entertainment, to glamour and glitz and crooners, and Darren always starts with the kind of song people to expect to hear in a place like this.

But the first song is the only gimme that Darren has. He’s been there longer than Chris, and even after all their years working together, Chris has never discerned a rhyme or reason to his setlist. After the first song, though, anything is fair game. _Literally_ anything. Darren will take requests from the crowd, or spend thirty seconds strumming a guitar and singing something he made up. Chris has even heard Darren sing a commercial jingle before.

The girls in the front are still screaming, seemingly at every little twitch of Darren’s body or face, but even then they quiet down. Probably because the Red Rabbit isn’t a concert venue, and the owners have threatened to kick the girls out for being too “rowdy.” Chris wonders if they’d ever actually get rid of what he can only call Darren’s fan club—they’re a constant source of business, after all.

The song ends, and the girls are up and screaming again, Darren dipping into a cheesy bow to match the ridiculous grin on his face.

“He’s _amazing_ ,” Anna gushes as Darren continues to introduce himself and the band, and Chris gives her a pitying look that he’s glad she can’t see. He’s seen a lot of people lose their hearts to Darren over the years, just based on the performances he gives a handful of times a week. It makes Chris want to tell them that Darren loses his keys at least once a day, and that he has a tendency to talk with his mouth full of food, and that he used to prefer toilet paper to go _under_ instead of _over_ (the freak).

But it’s better this way, he thinks. It’s easier to be in love with a person that you only know as much about as they let you. It’s easy to be in love with a _persona_ , with a stage presence, with the sound of someone’s voice and the color of their eyes than it is to be in love with a person themselves. And people who come to places like this are generally looking for easy things.

Besides, it’s made Anna seem to forget about her embarrassing attempt to hit on Chris, and has maybe even taken her mind off her problem entirely. It took a long time for Chris to come to terms with the fact that, sometimes, there was nothing he could do. That sometimes people just needed to run and hide away from something, and Darren’s music is the perfect place to do that.

The next song isn’t one that Chris recognizes, but that’s not unusual, and it helps Chris focus on, well, his _job_. He doesn’t exactly come to a standstill whenever Darren performs, but it is… Distracting. Sometimes Chris finds himself slowing to a stop right in the middle of something just to watch, or listen, and the urge is especially strong when he knows there’s someone close by who has never seen Darren up on stage before. How is she reacting? What is she thinking?

Darren cycles through a few more songs after that, from Michael Bublé to The Beatles to Katy Perry. Every time Chris makes a pass by Anna, her drink is still at the exact same level it’s been since the performance started, and Chris assumes he was right about Anna just needing to be distracted. He’s glad, then, that she stumbled into the bar on a night Darren was performing.

“So this will be our last song of the night…” Darren starts, and the loud, “ _Aw_ ,” from the front tables is overwhelming. “I know, I know. But we had a good time, right? Let’s not spoil it.”

Chris chuckles to himself, grabbing a clean glass from beneath the bar and setting it down, before he turns and watches Darren. If nothing else, Chris is always sure to watch the last song of the night.

Darren is reattaching the microphone to the stand, and the lights on the stage dim slightly so that Darren is more spotlighted than the rest of the band. Chris leans against the back ledge and loosely crosses his arms, waiting with a small smile on his face.

There is one pattern to Darren’s setlist, and just one. The first song is always a crooner classic, and the last song… Well.

“This…” Darren says, taking the microphone between his hands. “Is for someone special.”

The last song is always a love song.

The guitarist has barely started when Darren jumps in.

“ _[When your legs don’t work like they used to before](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpyfrixXBqU), and I can’t sweep you off of your feet_ ,” he sings, and Chris blinks a few times. It’s another song he doesn’t know, but this time, he’s sure to pay attention. “ _Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love? Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?_ ”

Darren’s eyes snap over towards the bar, and Chris swallows thickly, pressing his lips together.

“ _And darling I will be loving you ‘till we’re 70. And baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23_.” Darren starts to sway with the microphone, his body incapable of standing still as the beat of the music picks up.

“ _And I’m thinking ‘bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways…_ ” Darren drags the microphone stand with him as he approaches the edge of the stage, and the girls go wild as he crouches down and reaches out to them. “ _Maybe just the touch of a hand_.”

Chris covers his smile with his own hand, rolling his eyes at Darren hamming the song up for the girls, but he’s smiling for an entirely different reason as Darren’s eyes return to him.

“ _Well me, I fall in love with you every single day, and I just want to tell you I am_.” Darren stands, banging his head with the drum as he launches into the chorus, and Chris just watches him, mesmerized the way a lot of the people in the Red Rabbit seem to become when Darren sings.

Chris will never forget the first time he’d heard Darren sing. He’d been told there were performances, but that was about all the info he had. He’d been waiting tables at the time, and carrying a tray of empty dishes back to the kitchen when Darren had started singing, “The Way You Look Tonight.” It had been so startling that Chris had dropped the entire tray and had broken most of the dishes, and had spent most of the rest of the performance cleaning up bits of ceramic and glass and apologizing profusely for the damage he’d done.

Later that night, he’d stood outside, hoping he’d still have a job the next week, when Darren hit him with the employee door (but that’s what Chris had deserved, standing behind it, really). Somehow, he’d recognized Chris, even though they’d never spoken before. He’d introduced himself, and then taken Chris’s hand without preamble, turning it over and over before smiling.

“Good,” he’d said. “I saw you drop all of those dishes, and I would have felt really fucking bad if you’d cut yourself on them.”

Chris had been so embarrassed, but at the same time… Darren had seen him, had been concerned, and it was hard not to take that and treasure it, holding it close to his heart as if it was this small, brilliant, warm light.

The bridge comes, and Chris takes that as his cue that the song is nearly over now. He grabs the bottle of whiskey behind him and pours it into the waiting glass. By the time he’s made his way back over to the main bar, glass in hand, Darren is launching into what Chris assumes is the final chorus.

“ _So baby now…_ ” Darren’s eyes are closed but they flash open, and they’re right back to staring at the back of the room. Chris wonders if anyone has noticed—that even with every time Darren glances down, or away, or closes his eyes, he always ends up looking back in the same exact spot.“ _Take me into your loving arms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars. Oh darling, place your head on my beating heart._ ” Darren closes his eyes again, and smiles, tipping his head to the side. “ _I’m thinking out loud that maybe we found love right where we are._ ”

His eyes flutter open as the instruments start to wind down.“ _Well, maybe we found love right where we are._ ” The instruments stop, and one person claps preemptively before Darren’s voice comes in all on its own.“ _And we found love right where we are._ ”

The cheering and clapping starts, and Darren makes his final bow before him and the band disappear behind the curtains. Anna is clapping enthusiastically, mouth open and face… Flushed. Chris wonders for a moment if it’s the alcohol, but at some point she’d set the drink back on the bar, and it still appears relatively untouched.

And then it hits him. If Darren had been looking back at the bar while he’d been singing that, back at Chris, it would have looked like… Oh dear _god_. Chris laughs, just a little bit, is unable to help himself, but Anna doesn’t seem to notice (or realize that it’s directed at the besotted look on her face). Which is probably for the best. Chris feels like an asshole for laughing the first place.

He can’t wait to tell Darren about the new groupie he so easily ensnared.

As the lights return to normal, and the girls at the front of the restaurant start to thin, some heading home now that the performance is over while the rest stay behind to drink. Chris leaves Anna behind to close tabs and make drinks, but every time he looks back over, she’s just smiling dreamily to herself and slowly circling her straw through her drink.

It’s only a few moments later when there’s a knock against the far end of the bar, the end where Anna is sitting and… Well, basically no one else, but the bar is pretty empty as it is.

“Hey, stranger,” Darren greets as Chris walks over, grabbing the drink he’d made during the end of Darren’s last song.

Anna’s head swings around at the sound of Darren’s voice, and Chris can only wonder at the expression on her face as he hands the drink over to Darren.

“Nice set tonight,” Chris says as their fingers brush, and Darren grins.

“Glad you liked it.” Darren smiles at him, and then gives a nod towards the side door that leads into the back. Chris holds up his hand, and then turns.

“Hey, Kate! I’m going on my break, all right?” He calls down the bar, and the woman at the other end turns to look at him before giving a salacious wink and a salute. “Anna.” Chris turns to her, and smiles at the absolutely shocked expression seemingly frozen on her face. “I’m going on my break, but if you need anything, just call Kate over and she’ll help you out.”

Darren seems to have realized that he’s being gawked at, because he’s grinning over at Chris, eyes flicking to Anna before he gives a wiggle of his fingers and a friendly, “Hey.”

 _Oh no_ , Chris is not going to spend the next ten minutes watching Darren flirt with some poor girl. He can see Anna desperately wanting to say something back, but not being able to find the words, and so he figures he’ll put her out of her misery—Chris grabs Darren by the arm and drags him into the back.

The second the door is closed, Darren is pressed against Chris’s back, arms wrapped around him.

“Did you like the song?” Darren asks into the skin of Chris’s neck, and Chris spins in his arms so that they’re facing one another.

“I mean, you do serenade me at least three times a week, _sometimes_ four, but…” Chris can’t help but smile, pushing some of the stage-sweaty curls away from where they’re sticking to Darren’s forehead. “Yes, I did.”

And Darren grins, large and wide and happy, eyes crinkling in the way Chris loves, like Chris has somehow given Darren something even though he was the one doing all the performing.

Chris used to feel guilty, being serenaded to so often and never returning the favor, but the stage hasn’t been apart of his life for a long time, and while Darren used to push him a lot more, he understands that performing is something that needs to remain in Chris’s past (at least, performing for anyone more than Darren and a handful of other people). But Darren had insisted, still insists, that if it makes Chris happy, that’s all he needed in return.

Chris had smacked him for being so sappy, and then kissed him because he sort of loves it when Darren says shit like that.

“ _Maybe we found love right where we are…_ ” Chris sings back softly to Darren now, so close that their noses are touching, and Darren closes his eyes, seemingly content just to stand like that.

“You guys are disgusting,” Lauren comments as she walks in, grabbing something and then immediately leaving, and they both start laughing, foreheads pressed together.

 _Yeah_ , they kind of are.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Read & Reblog on Tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/92401007275/right-where-we-are)


End file.
